Star Trek: Voyager - 042 - Protectors

by Kirsten Beyer

The office was unlike that of any counselor’s Janeway had ever visited. Most favored decorations in soft, neutral tones and utilitarian chairs. The admiral had no idea what hues the walls of this space might have been. Vivid colors assaulted her from every direction: greens, riotous pinks, lavenders, and delicate shades of white. A vast and varied collection of ornamental plants and flowers sat atop nearly every available surface and covered many of the walls in long leafy tendrils. Although Janeway could not place the source, the sound of gently trickling water could be heard. The effect was not dramatic enough to create the illusion of being outdoors or in a botanical garden, but she was immediately conscious of a sense of vibrant, churning, beautiful life. The fragrances of the various plants were somehow muted.

  A woman of average height with long, thick white hair that was pulled into a wild, uncooperative ponytail and who was wearing a light gray smock over her uniform turned gingerly from tending to a large orchid to greet Janeway as she entered. Hers were the most vivid violet eyes Janeway had ever seen. Many fine lines and deep crevasses across the counselor’s face revealed her age, likely in her eighties.

  “Admiral Janeway,” she said, crossing to her and offering her hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Commander Rori Austen.”

  “Do you prefer commander or counselor?” Janeway asked.

  “Counselor, since you asked,” Austen replied. Her hands were warm and soft but her grip was solid. “And you?”

  Janeway hesitated. She had every right to request to be referred to by her rank. It would be interesting to see what Austen settled on without prompting. But as she paused, she was struck by the wariness with which she approached the simple question. At some point in the last few weeks when confronting these strangers who held her future in their hands, she had begun to look for hidden meanings that might be wrought from every choice she made. She was reduced to overthinking her name. It was so unlike her as to be completely unnerving. Refusing to play the game into which she had been thrust, Janeway still wondered what the right answer to Austen’s question might be.

  It had to stop.

  “Kathryn,” she finally replied.

  “Kathryn it is,” Austen said with a cordial nod.

  “Your office is lovely,” Janeway noted.

  “Thank you,” Austen said with a wry smile. “Would you care to sit?” she asked, gesturing to a cushioned chair that rested beside a small table upon which stood a transparent pitcher of water, a single glass, and a tissue dispenser. A similar chair was opposite the table, and Austen moved to make herself comfortable, removing her smock and hanging it on a small metal rack located just next to the door before settling in.

  Ignoring the padd on the table before her, which likely contained Janeway’s records, she began, “I have already reviewed Counselor Jens’s notes on your first sessions as well as your permanent file. I know you’ve only been back with us a few days. How are you adjusting?” She folded her hands in her lap. Her voice was warm and rich.

  “Well enough, I suppose,” Janeway said. “I realize this time has been given to me to address the deeper issues surrounding the significant traumas I have recently endured. But I haven’t had much opportunity to do that. It seems everywhere I turn something is on fire and I need to put it out.”

  “Is there a reason you are assuming personal responsibility for these things you believe are on fire rather than allowing others to deal with them while you take some time for yourself?”

  “It’s what I do,” Janeway admitted. “People put problems in front of me. I solve them. An occupational hazard, I suppose.”

  “I see.”

  Janeway paused, waiting for more, but Austen sat calm and composed, her eyes betraying a slight twinkle. Where Jens had been filled with useless questions, Austen seemed content to allow Kathryn to rustle into the weeds on her own.

  “I have spent a little time with my family,” Janeway offered.

  “How did that go?”

  “It’s complicated,” Janeway admitted.

  “Is that usually the case?”

  Janeway smiled in spite of herself. “My mother is always wonderful. She takes the good without dwelling on the bad. She accepts me as I am and never asks me to be anything else.” She paused. “My sister is a different story. There’s a lot of love there, but you have to go pretty deep to find it sometimes.”

  “They must have been relieved to learn that you weren’t dead,” Austen said.

  “Yes,” Janeway said, and nodded. “But Phoebe, my sister, assumed that my career with Starfleet would be ending when I returned and was very upset to learn that she was mistaken.”

  “Hmm,” Austen said, looking away briefly to add this information to whatever mental picture she had of Janeway.

  “She’s a civilian,” Janeway offered. “She doesn’t understand our calling.”

  “Is that what this is?” Austen asked.

  “For me,” Janeway said, then ventured, “not for you?”

  “It’s an interesting choice of words,” Austen replied, ignoring the personal question.

  “How so?”

  “If one is called to something, that implies that they lack the ability to exercise their own will in making a determination about whether or not to answer that call. I suppose it’s possible that one might answer ‘no,’ but obviously you didn’t.”

  “My father served Starfleet. I grew up adoring him and wanting to please him and living for the day I would follow in his footsteps. For me, there was no other path.”

  “It’s a big universe, Kathryn. There are as many paths as you dare imagine.”

  “But only one that would give me the chance to see that universe up close,” Janeway said.

  “You had no choice?”

  “Not if I wanted fulfillment.”

  “There are many civilian organizations engaged in exploration of the stars,” Austen suggested.

  Janeway paused. “Are you trying to soften up some ground here?” she asked. “Do you know something I don’t about my future prospects with Starfleet?”

  “No,” Austen said, and Janeway believed her. “But you have spent almost every moment since your return behaving as if the Full Circle fleet is already yours, and I’m not convinced that you are certain about your future prospects with Starfleet either.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Janeway retorted sharply. “Like everybody else, I serve at the pleasure of my superior officers.”

  “You’ve been issuing orders beyond your purview,” Austen said.

  “I was given clearance to do so by Admiral Akaar.”

  “That was Picard’s advice, right?” Austen asked.

  Janeway felt her cheeks begin to flush.

  “It sounds like him anyway,” Austen clarified.

  “As long as my status remains undetermined, the lives of people I care very much about are in danger,” Janeway said evenly. “They have needs, and no matter what Command ultimately decides, I will see that they are met.”

  “That’s not your job right now.”

  “I can’t abandon them.”

  “They’re not children, Kathryn. They wouldn’t be out there if they hadn’t proven they can take care of themselves.”

  “The needs I’m talking about are uniquely addressable from my current location.”

  “And in due time will be handled,” Austen assured her. “But your task right now is to set their needs aside and tend to your own.”

  “My needs aren’t that great,” Janeway said. “I can do both. And if I can’t, theirs come first. Anything else is just selfishness. I owe them better than that.”

  “You don’t get to be selfish sometimes?”

  “Not in the line of duty.”

  “Right now, your commanding officers are ordering you to be selfish. Instead you are focusing all of your attention on the needs of those you once commanded. You justify it by telling yourself you have no other choice.”

  Janeway drew in a sharp breath.
Refusing to rise to Austen’s bait, she took a few more slow, measured inhalations. “I don’t know what else to do,” she finally admitted.

  Austen nodded thoughtfully, then said gently, “Of course you don’t. Survival of trauma demands that you carve out a comfort zone from which to continue operating. That’s all you’re doing here.”

  “There’s nothing comfortable about my life right now,” Janeway retorted. “My responsibilities haven’t changed, but I am now denied the power required to meet them. Everywhere I turn, one person after another is telling me that my past choices make me unfit to continue wielding that power.”

  “Power is never taken from us. It is only given away,” Austen said softly.

  “Why would I do that?” Janeway demanded.

  “Either you have internalized others’ opinions, or you agreed with them to begin with.”

  “I can command the fleet,” Janeway insisted. “I have made mistakes, but I’ve learned from them.”

  “Painful mistakes?”

  “As opposed to . . . ?”

  “And when you say you have learned from them, what does that mean?” Austen asked.

  “It means that I accept full responsibility for those choices and will use the knowledge gained from their consequences to make better decisions in the future.”

  “Accepting responsibility isn’t the same thing as acceptance.”

  “I don’t see the distinction,” Janeway said.

  “Apparently not,” Austen agreed.

  At this, Janeway rose from her chair. It was her nature to fight battles on her feet. “I don’t know what your regrets might be, Counselor, or how complex the issues are that come across your desk on a daily basis, but commanding officers don’t get to make easy calls. Nothing brought to our attention has a simple answer. We’re forced to wade through the gray areas of this existence. We use our best judgment, knowing that the lives of our crew may be lost either way, and we are often forced to choose between the lesser of evils. When consequences are revealed to have been even more devastating than we had calculated, we accept it and move on because tomorrow another group of equally unpleasant options will be laid before us for consideration.”

  “What do you do with all that guilt?” Austen asked.

  “Live with it,” Janeway replied.

  “But each time you are faced with a new decision, you have your past experiences to guide you,” Austen said. “That should free you in a way. The more wisdom you collect over time, the easier it must be to confront even the most challenging issue.”

  “It should.”

  “But for you, it isn’t, or you wouldn’t be so reluctant to face this.”

  “What am I refusing to face?”

  “Your power. Your control. You pretend to grasp for them with one hand while tossing them away with the other. You don’t believe you can do this job, or you wouldn’t be fighting so hard to convince yourself and everybody else that you can.”

  “I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t,” Janeway said.

  “So again you have no choice?”

  “I can’t run away from the only life I’ve ever known, the only course that has ever brought me any true happiness.”

  “Altering course isn’t the same thing as retreating. Sometimes it is a tactic devised to allow you to regroup and return stronger.”

  “You’re saying I need to get a hobby?” Janeway demanded.

  “You need to tell me what you’re so damned afraid of. You recently spent a great deal of time with an incredibly advanced species witnessing your life in every conceivable time line. Something you learned has you spooked.”

  “I don’t know how familiar you are with quantum physics or temporal mechanics, but in essence, each individual time line is the product of a point of divergence,” Janeway explained.

  “Don’t they all have some common point of origination?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what are you afraid of? You’re not responsible for the actions of alternate versions of you. You’re on your own unique path. The information you have received as a result of this extraordinary gift will be added to everything else you know, and it will be easier to avoid mistakes in the future as a result.”

  Janeway’s heart began to pound harshly in her chest. She moved again to the chair and sat, willing her heartbeat to slow. “It will,” she said softly. “It will.”

  “Or it won’t,” Austen suggested, “because the truth is, whatever you saw that terrified you so, lives in you, too. You can’t avoid it. It is beyond your control. What if you have no choice?”

  “I won’t go down that road,” Janeway insisted. “I won’t be her.”

  “Who?”

  “The worst possible version of myself; the one who decided her life was so unbearable, she had to alter time to change it. She couldn’t live with her choices. I will live with mine.”

  “Maybe it was the living with them that brought her to that point,” Austen suggested. “Accepting responsibility, absorbing all the pain of the consequences of our choices isn’t the same thing as acceptance,” Austen said.

  Janeway felt tears begin to burn her cheeks. The last time she had confronted the pain Austen was digging furiously to unearth was the moment her godson had seen fit to return Chakotay to her from the Omega Continuum. The tension of too many days operating in crisis mode had snapped her control, and she had dissolved into a mass of shuddering, violent spasms of agony. Once they had passed, Chakotay had gently taken her into his arms and held her. As her new life became reality, the horrors she had endured were buried in darkness she refused to contemplate. The darkness rose now, forcing her to realize that buried was not the same as gone.

  “What do you want from me?” Janeway blurted out.

  “Don’t,” Austen began gently, “don’t add me to the list of those you feel you must carry. I don’t want anything from you.”

  Janeway sat, terribly cold and completely alone in the churning center of a maelstrom as her past assaulted her. Images rose too quickly for her to catch them before they transmuted into others, each more sickening than the last; a tiny dank cell echoing with the sounds of Owen Paris screaming, a shuttle sinking beneath an icy lake, an alien array exploding and severing her completely from the life she had known, the first Borg cube she had encountered, the face of Tuvix standing on a transporter pad, the face of Noah Lessing pleading for his life as alien screeching echoed all around her, the face of her godson’s mother vanishing as Janeway felt the violent river of Borg technology pouring into her veins, her death replaying over and over across eternity, and the absolute annihilation Omega had promised.

  Janeway had no choice but to let them come, to wash over her, wave after wave, conscious that soon, they would suffocate her.

  Terror counseled her to find her feet and run as far and fast as she could. Austen’s kind face kept her rooted to her chair.

  As she gulped for what she thought might be the last breath of air available in the room, another memory rose alongside these horrors: the face of her future self, etched with sadness so deep, Janeway could hardly bear to witness it. She had come to help, to give Captain Janeway the wisdom to avoid her mistakes, and in doing so, compounded them. Her counsel had brought Janeway—and those she loved—immediate relief, an end to their trials, but at the ultimate price of billions of lives, not least among them, Q’s. Her shortsightedness had almost brought the entire multiverse to oblivion. That Admiral Janeway had chosen to die so her younger self and crew might live, but had that been a noble sacrifice? Or was it her only escape from pain she no longer knew how to endure?

  How could anyone shoulder that burden alone? How could anyone absorb that much pain, suffer so deeply, and choose to continue? What would Janeway do when the deep, dark holes in which she buried her pain were full to overflowing?

  “I didn’t see it,” Janeway murmured through trembling lips.
“How could I not see it?”

  “See what?”

  “She came to bring us home. If I refused her help, Seven and many others would die. Tuvok would go mad. Chakotay . . .” she began but couldn’t even complete the thought. “That future horrified me, but despite everything I knew to be right, fear won. I went along with her. I helped her. How did I not see that she was the problem?”

  “Forgive her, Kathryn,” Austen said softly. “Forgive yourself.”

  “I can’t,” Janeway replied through her tears.

  “Then risk becoming her.”

  “I can’t,” Janeway insisted.

  “Of course you can.”

  “How?”

  “Let go,” Austen said simply.

  Those words reverberated through her as surely as they had only weeks ago when she had found herself in the Q Continuum. A voice had beckoned her again and again to let go; a voice she had ultimately ignored because the peace it offered could only be purchased with passage to oblivion. The power of that voice had been beyond any Janeway had ever known and the eternal rest it promised would surely be hers when her work was truly done. She had never considered the possibility that such peace could accompany living.

  Struggling to make sense of this, Janeway watched as her own imperfect past collected itself in the center of her being, a throbbing, pitiful mass of living regret. She knew only one way to deal with it and with all her might tried to force it into a dark corner from which its torments might be bearable. As long as she kept busy, it was easy enough to ignore.

  Suddenly, she saw herself once again, standing before a mirror, just as she had in the Q Continuum when her body had been collected from cosmic dust and made whole. Before her the outlines of a woman were visible, the contours of her body a rough approximation of Janeway’s own. But this woman gave off her own illumination, an almost blinding light. Janeway stared at her, not in the mirror, but as the mirror. All she had ever been, or would ever be, gazed silently at her, quietly demanding recognition.

  That woman turned her gaze to the churning mass in the center of Kathryn’s being and said softly, “Go.”

  “Go,” Janeway whispered.

  Her stomach rebelled but she persisted. Closing her eyes, Janeway allowed that mass to begin to rise. How something so heavy could be lifted with no more effort than that required to move a feather, she did not understand, but she refused to question it. It passed through her heart, her mind, and finally hung above her like a storm cloud.